Organize the Inside of Your Car for a Road Trip

I would like to thank MomOf6 for this awesome video on How to Organize the Inside of Your Car for Road Trips. I organized it into a wiki for anyone with a hearing impairment, or for those who just prefer to read the steps. Hope you enjoy

Steps

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Hi, I'm Sharon Rowley from momofsix.com, and this summer, I'm taking my family on a great American road trip. One mom, 6 kids, 8,000 miles, headed from New York, out to see the Western United States. Now, for a road trip like this, you really need to be super organized, and one of the ways that I keep the inside of our car organized is by bins and containers. And my favorite bin is this fantastic one that I found online. It's umm... got lots of pockets, it has little places for kids to put drink bottles, and inside they can put books, DVDs, and all of their all-important electronics to keep occupied while on the trip.

Now, these bins buckle right into the seat, so you do have to have a spare seat in between where your kids are sitting to fit these bins in your car. They also come with this really nifty top that go on top of the bin to keep it closed, or you can turn it upside down and use it as a food tray if you're eating lunch or breakfast on the road.

Another way to keep your car organized is, I purchased these bins that actually go under each kid's seat, and inside these bins, we keep a nice little fuzzy car blanket, to cuddle up with, if you want to sleep in the car; I keep the kids' sunglasses in case it gets bright and sunny on the road, a spare sweatshirt; and when they take off their shoes to relax in the car, they can put their shoes in the bin as well. That way, everything's contained, nice and neat, and they know exactly where to go to find what they're looking for.

Trash bags, you gotta have them in the car. Otherwise the kids are always going to want to be handing the trash up to you in the front seat. So we take an old grocery bag, we hang it in the car, and each row has their own trash bag. Then, when we arrive at the hotel in the evening, they can take their bag and dispose of it and the car is nice and clean and ready to go the next day.

The other thing that we fit underneath the seat for each row of kids is a backpack, an empty backpack, and when we get to the hotel, they can take all of their electronics, their chargers, pack it up in their backpack for the whole row, one kid carries it in, and when they leave the hotel the next day, they're responsible to make sure that they put in the backpack, everything that they carried into the hotel.